Richard Morgan - Class 1 - God’s Eternal Purpose

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

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   This is day one of the 2021 Idlewild Bible School. Our first period teacher is Brother Richard Morgan. His general subject is Ephesians, the manifold wisdom of God. Today's topic is God's eternal purpose. Brother Richard. Well, thanks, Jeff, and a very good morning to you all, brothers and sisters. It's absolutely wonderful to be with you, and I echo Steve's thoughts from last night and how awesome it is that we can be together without masks, not on Zoom. This is absolutely great.

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   So we're going to have a look at the epistles of the Ephesians, and one of the things that you might notice as you read through Ephesians is that every single verse is packed full of information. We could do a class on each individual verse, and of course we don't have that much time, so I had to pick a theme, and we're going to look at the manifold wisdom of God.

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   This week, brothers and sisters, we are going to delve deeply into the mind of the eternal God. And that's something that the Apostle Paul invites us to do in his epistle, to try to grasp something of the eternal. Now, our title, The Manifold Wisdom of God, comes from Ephesians chapter 3. And I want us to begin there.

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   If you open your Bibles at Ephesians 3, and this is in the context of where Paul is talking about his call to be an apostle to the Gentiles. He is preaching what he calls the mystery of the gospel to the Gentiles. And he says there in Ephesians chapter 3 and verse 7, You can just see some of the language there, how rich it is.

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   And so many questions come to us. Why was this hidden? What is this mystery? What are the riches of Christ? Every verse has questions like this. So that, verse 10, through the ecclesia, the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose that is realized in Christ Jesus our Lord.

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   So you can see there, brothers and sisters, that the manifold wisdom of God, and the word manifold means multifaceted, or as we'll see in our fifth class, multicolored. This manifold wisdom of God, brothers and sisters, is connected with God's eternal purpose. Now that's one of those phrases in Scripture that you can quickly read and think, yes, well, God has an eternal purpose.

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   But just think about that for a moment. I mean, I have hard enough problem making plans for tomorrow afternoon. Plans that often get frustrated. And God has an eternal purpose. Now whether you think that purpose started 6,000 years ago, or 14 and a half billion years ago, it stretches into eternity. It's an incredible thing.

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   You think how intricate that is. And the point about God's purpose, brothers and sisters, it's not something that God makes up as He goes along. He's not a reactionary God that when things change, that God has to change. No, God designed this purpose from the beginning. And this is what Paul emphasizes in Ephesians, that He designed the history of eternity from the beginning in totality.

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   And all the intricacy that's connected with prophecy, and dealing with Israel, and the call of the Gentiles, and the call of us as individuals and as members of Ecclesias. And the intricacy of working His plan through our fickleness, and our stubbornness. God raising His children. All the things connected with eternity. God planned from the beginning.

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    And when you sit down and really think about that, brothers and sisters, it is an incredible, incredible thing. And Paul wants us to try to grasp what that eternal purpose is. So what is that eternal purpose? Well, if you go back to chapter 1, Paul defines God's purpose in a rather interesting way, intriguing way.

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    Now, if I were to ask you, what is the ultimate purpose of God? What would you say? To fill this earth with God's glory. Numbers 14, 21, verses like that, Habakkuk 2, verse 14. God wants to fill this earth with His glory. And that is right. But Paul doesn't express it in those terms.

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    He alludes to it in chapter 1. But here in the chapter we read earlier, when Paul talks about God's purpose, he sums it up in verse 10. We'll read verse 9 first of all. He says, That is Paul's summation of the eternal purpose of God. He wants, God wants to unite all things.

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    Maybe something we don't normally think about when we talk about the eternal purpose of God. But what we find when we read through Ephesians, and you'll see it in our readings, and I'm glad we're reading Ephesians. I didn't know that was going to happen, that we're going to read through this epistle each morning.

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    You'll notice that unity is central to what Paul says in every single chapter. Unity. So keep that, brothers and sisters, at the back of your minds as we go through our topic. God wants to unite all things. That is what God is focused on. Now let's talk a little bit about the structure of Ephesians.

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    Now I find structure fascinating. I'm a little bit of a structure nerd. And you might say, Oh, this is the dry bit. This is where I can concentrate on something else. This will take 30 seconds. We're not going to spend a lot of time on structure at all. And just one slide, there it is.

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    If you don't remember anything else about the structure of Ephesians, this is the key point. And there's a powerful exhortation that comes from this. Ephesians can be neatly divided into two halves. The first three chapters, and then the last three chapters. So you can see on the left-hand side there, in the first three chapters, Paul describes what we are called to.

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    And this is a little bit technical, but in the Greek, he uses what is called the indicative mood. So Greek has different moods that the verbs are written in. And this is in the indicative. These are statements of fact. Paul is indicating things in the first three chapters of Ephesians. He says things like in chapter 1, verse 3, that God has blessed us.

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    So he's describing what our calling is, what it looks like. So that's the first three chapters. Then everything changes from chapter 4 to the end of the book. And now the mood in the Greek changes to what is called the imperative, where Paul now commands things. He impels us to action. So it's one thing to listen to and hear about these eternal things.

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    It's another thing to put these things into action. And so he says things like in chapter 4, verse 1, I urge you to walk. That's Paul impelling us, commanding us, using this imperative mood. So how does Paul describe things then in the first three chapters? Let's have a look at some of the language of the first half of this epistle.

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    And he uses some very, very majestic language. Have a look at chapter 1, for instance, in verse 19. Paul says there in verse 19 that he wants us to know what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe. The immeasurable greatness of his power. You might think, well, Paul's exaggerating a bit there.

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    But no, he's not. God's power is immeasurable. This is one of the incredible things about the God that we serve. You think about the universe. From our point of view, brothers and sisters, it's infinite. And yet God is outside of that universe. He created the universe. He spoke and the stars were created for crying out loud.

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    That just blows your mind when you think about it. God's power is immeasurable. This is one of the things that Paul wants us to understand. Have a look at chapter 2, verse 7. So that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable, there's that word again, the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

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    Christians are going to be talking about grace this week. God's grace toward us, his kindness, the riches connected with that, they're immeasurable. Think about that, brothers and sisters. Here we are, living out our three score years and ten, stumbling through life, making mistakes, falling off the edge, having the need to be picked up all the time, making so many mistakes.

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    And yet, despite that, God wants to share eternity with you and me. Eternity. For three score years and ten of our miserable, sometimes we look at it in that way, our very poor effort at glorifying God.

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    Yes, God's kindness, his grace toward us, is immeasurable. He's offered us eternity. We just read in chapter 3, verse 8, about the unsearchable riches of Christ. Unsearchable. The manifold wisdom of God. And then he sums it all up at the end of chapter 3 in what is called a doxology. Paul does this a number of times in his epistles where as he's penning these words under inspiration of God, he's so overcome with the message that he's delivering that he has to sum it up in what is called a doxology, this eruption of praise to God.

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    And he does that at the end of the first half of Ephesians where in verse 14 he says, for this reason, for everything we've talked about, these unsearchable riches, this immeasurable power, this manifold wisdom, this eternal purpose of God. For this reason I bow my knees before the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory, he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his spirit in your inner being so that Christ may dwell in your heart through faith, that you being rooted and grounded in love may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth.

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    Now that word comprehend means to grasp. Paul wants us to grasp these things. The magnitude of these things, the breadth, the length, the depth, the height of God's eternal purpose. There's no mountain high enough to illustrate God's purpose. You cannot go deep enough into the earth. You cannot travel far enough. And yet Paul wants us to grasp these things.

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    And verse 19, to know the love of Christ that surpasses, that's the same word in the Greek, immeasurable, that surpasses knowledge. That you may be filled with all the fullness of God. That's incredible what Paul is saying, that you might be filled with all the fullness of God. Now think about verse 19.

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    There's a paradox there, isn't there, brothers and sisters? What do you make of verse 19? How can we know something that surpasses knowledge? How can we grasp these eternal things with our finite minds, with our natural short-term thinking? And yet that's exactly what Paul is asking us to do. He wants us to know these things, to grasp these things.

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    So let's think about verse 19 in particular. How on earth can we know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge? How can we figure these things out if they are immeasurable, unsearchable, eternal? Well, to figure out the conundrum of what Paul is saying here, I want us to think about a Bible echo.

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    Paul, in his language that he uses in Ephesians, is commenting, it's almost a commentary on the life of a particular Old Testament character who is well known for two of the words that we've looked at, riches and wisdom. If you look back at chapter 1, Paul pairs these ideas together a number of times.

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    So back in chapter 1 and verse 7, he says, in Christ we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of His grace. Riches is a key word in Ephesians, which He lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight. And then he puts wisdom and riches together again in verse 17.

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    That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom. So God has offered us to give us wisdom. The Bible, you already know who we're going to talk about in a moment. to give you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation and the knowledge of Him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which He has called you, what are the riches of His glorious inheritance and the saints.

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    So their wisdom and riches go together again. And Paul again in verse 19 there says he wants us to know these things. In fact, he says at the beginning of verse 18, having the eyes of your hearts or understanding enlightened. He wants us to see these things, these eternal things. I mean, he's not talking here of course about natural eyes.

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    These are the eyes of our hearts, the eyes of our understanding. This is a deeper insight that Paul wants us to have, that we might see these invisible things. So how can we do that, brothers and sisters? How can we see the invisible? How can we comprehend the eternal, the immeasurable, the unsearchable?

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    How can we know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge? Well, the echo here goes back to Solomon. And there's a number of connections with Solomon. This is just one of them. This is the verse in Kings where God asks Solomon, I'll give you anything you want. Solomon said famously, give me wisdom.

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    Behold, I now do according to your word, God says, behold, I give you a wise and discerning mind. So that, and here's how Solomon is a type of what Paul is talking about in Ephesians. So that none like you shall arise, so that none like you has been before you and none like you shall arise after you.

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    The wisest man who's ever lived. So if you want a type of manifold wisdom, our Old Testament type is Solomon. Verse 13, I'll give you also what you have not asked, both riches and honor, so that no other king shall compare with you all your days. So incomparable riches. So Solomon's a suitable type then for beginning to understand how we can comprehend these things.

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    Now let's go back to Kings. I want us to go to 1 Kings chapter 10 and have a look at this topic through the eyes of somebody who decided to visit Solomon. 1 Kings chapter 10.

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    So here is a woman, the Queen of Sheba, who had heard about Solomon's wisdom and riches but she wanted to see it with her eyes. And it's a lesson for us by the system. In fact, we can look at 1 Kings chapter 10 in a couple of ways. One way to look at this is that it's a vision of the kingdom.

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    But finally, when we get to the kingdom, all our questions will be answered. And all the things that we hear about right now, about the things of God and our Lord Jesus Christ, we're finally going to see our Lord in the kingdom. And everything's going to become clear. So that's one way to look at 1 Kings chapter 10.

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    But as far as Paul is concerned in Ephesians, comprehending these things doesn't need to wait until the kingdom. Ultimately, of course, that's when they will come to pass. But we can grasp these things right now. So it says in verse 1 of 1 Kings chapter 10, that when the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon, that's a key word here.

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    See, she's heard about it. She's heard about the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the Lord. She came to test him with hard questions. So she's not satisfied with just hearing about it. She needs to go to Jerusalem. She needs to make the journey. And this is the exhortation of the epistle to the Ephesians.

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    First half of Ephesians, we hear about these things. But then we've got to make the journey to see these things. That's the second half of Ephesians. So verse 2, she came to Jerusalem with a very great retinue with camels bearing spices and very much gold and precious stones. And when she came to Solomon, she told him all that was on her mind.

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    And Solomon answered all her questions. There was nothing hidden from the king that he could not explain to her. And when the queen of Sheba had seen all the wisdom, seen all the wisdom. And there's the difference. It's one thing to hear about these things, brothers and sisters. It's another thing to see them.

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    As Paul says in Ephesians, with the eyes of our hearts, the eyes of our understanding. So when the queen of Sheba had seen all the wisdom of Solomon, the house that he had built, the food of his table, the seating of his officials, the attendance of his servants, their clothing, his cupbearers, his burnt offerings that he offered to the house of the Lord, there was no more breath in her.

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    Or as we might say, her breath was taken away. She was gobsmacked by how incredible these things were. We're going to have that experience, yes, princesses, in the kingdom. But we need to have that experience now as well. She said to the king, verse 6, the report was true that I heard in my own land of your words and your wisdom, but I did not believe the report until I came and my own eyes had seen it.

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    And behold, a half was not told me. And here's a Bible echo with Ephesians. Your wisdom and prosperity surpassed the report that I heard. And that's what Paul wants us to understand in Ephesians. And the exhortation that comes from the journey of the Queen of Sheba is what Paul brings out in Ephesians.

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    We need to get up and we need to walk. We Christadelphians, brothers and sisters, we're so good at, as we're doing today, sitting in rows, listening to classes. We hear class after class. We do our Bible study. We do our Bible marking. But, brothers and sisters, that's just half the story. We're not going to be able to comprehend these things.

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    We're not going to be able to grasp these eternal things by just sitting and listening to classes and marking up our Bibles. And if that's our religion, brothers and sisters, it's a false religion. It's only half the story. What the Queen of Sheba did is she traveled 1,200 miles because she needed to see it.

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    And that's what Paul says in Ephesians. So if you go to Ephesians chapter 4, this is exactly what he says. Having described these unsearchable, immeasurable, eternal things, he says at the beginning of chapter 4, verse 1, I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.

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    We cannot grasp these things without walking. You cannot understand, for instance, the love of Christ without going on the journey. Because it's only when you go on that journey, brothers and sisters, and you stumble and you fall into the pit and then you feel the arm of the Lord reaching down and lifting you out of that pit and putting you on level ground again.

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    That's when you begin to comprehend the love of Christ. It surpasses knowledge. You can study 1 Corinthians chapter 13, the love chapter, until you're blue in the face and you're not going to get it until you've experienced it in life. Until God has put you through those trials and He's allowed you to stumble.

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    The arm of the Lord reaches out and you feel, you see with the eyes of your heart that kindness and you can say, now I get it. Now I understand what love is. Now I understand what kindness is. Now I understand what grace is. Now I can begin to comprehend these unsearchable riches of Christ.

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    This immeasurable power of God that can take me out of this deep pit that I've put myself into and lift me up. So, brothers and sisters, we need to make the journey. We need to put these things into action. If we think that our religion is all about attending classes and we tend as Christadelphians, don't we, to exalt the platform.

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    It's only half the story. We have to walk and learn through experience. Paul even says this in Ephesians chapter 6 when he talks about parents raising their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. That means through discipline as well as instruction. That's how God raises us. And so when we talk about, sometimes we talk, and I was talking to Christian about this yesterday, that I think we make a mistake when we say things like we are gathered around the Word.

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    Really, brothers and sisters, we're gathered around the Word made flesh. That's the important thing. We need to understand the importance of that Word in action, of walking the walk. All right, with those things in mind, let's have a look into this eternal purpose of God. Come back with me to chapter 1 of Ephesians.

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    And by the way, later in the week, we're going to have a look at how God has helped us on this walk. What God has given us is a project to work on. It's not just about walking. What does that mean to walk? What do I actually do when I walk? Do I just blindly walk in some sort of direction?

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    Well, no. God has given us direction. He's given us a project to work on. It's a building project. And it's through that building project that we can learn about the eternal things of God. Anyway, back in Ephesians chapter 1,

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    have a look at some of the language here describing our call in Christ. So here is Paul indicating these eternal things. Chapter 1, verse 3, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world.

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    Think about that, brothers and sisters. God chose us in Christ not as His plan was going on and He saw this person and thought, oh, I think I'll call that person. No. He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world.

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    And again, we read this, but have you ever sat down and really tried to grasp the enormity of that? To choose us before the foundation of the world. What does that even mean? Well, we're going to try to begin to grasp the meaning behind that. First of all, by considering an Old Testament echo, and I think the Old Testament origin of this phrase, the foundation of the world.

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    Let's have a look at Proverbs chapter 8. I think this is where the idea of the foundation of the world comes from. Proverbs chapter 8, and what this chapter is about is the manifold wisdom of God. Here, wisdom personified as a woman, more specifically as a mother, as a wife, speaks and describes herself.

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    And she's not a basic sort of singular characteristic. She's an umbrella term that describes all sorts of things. So she describes herself, for instance, in chapter 8 here of Proverbs in verse 12, I, wisdom, dwell with prudence. I find knowledge and discretion and other things connected with her are fear and counsel and insight, verse 14.

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    By me, kings reign, verse 15. Verse 90, my fruit is better than gold and fine gold, my yield and choice silver, I walk in the way of righteousness, and so on. You see how wisdom describes herself using a number of terms. So, that's the multifaceted, the multicolored, the manifold wisdom of God. and verse 22 tells us that this was the primary, initial characteristic of God that He had in the beginning.

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    So in verse 22, it says that the Lord possessed me in the beginning. That's the exact same phrase as Genesis 1, verse 1. In the beginning of His work, at the first of His acts of all. This is the primary attribute God used in the beginning to formulate His plan. Verse 23, ages ago I was set up at the first before the beginning of the earth.

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    And then if you look at verse 29, at the end of the verse, wisdom continues to say that she was there when God marked out the foundations of the earth. And I think that's the origin of what Paul is talking about in Ephesians 1. God chose us in Him, in Christ, before the foundation of the world.

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    And to do that, in order to choose you and me and all the saints throughout history, and to work out beforehand, to map out beforehand the history of the world, the history of eternity, that requires, of course, manifold wisdom. And so here it is. So wisdom was there in the beginning. Now, when we look at that phrase, or that word foundation, you might think it's something to do with the foundation of a house, but that's not what it means at all.

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    What it does, in fact, this word, it opens up to us a very interesting analogy. So you can see on the screen there that this is the word, this word foundation that Paul uses is the word katabole, and it means the casting of seed into the bosom of the earth. Now, that's a wonderful analogy for the wisdom of God in the beginning to design eternity before it ever happened, to choose us in Christ before the foundation of the world.

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    You think about when you plant a seed, when you cast a seed into the bosom of the earth, a rosebush seed, for instance. What do you expect to grow if you plant a rosebush seed? A rosebush. You don't expect a sequoia that we saw a couple of weeks ago. If you saw a sequoia grow up, you think, well, there's something gone wrong here.

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    That was definitely not a rosebush seed. Why does it grow into a rosebush? Because it's there in the seed, in the design. It's one of the incredible things of nature. It blows your mind, doesn't it, brothers and sisters, when you think that that beautiful plant or tree or human being grows out of this tiny seed.

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    And inside that seed, before any of it exists, is the design. It's amazing. It's a miracle. And that's the analogy that Paul wants us to grasp hold of in Ephesians when he talks about the foundation of the world. It's as if, in the beginning, what God did was to plant a seed. And in that seed was the design of eternity.

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    It's not as if God makes it up as He goes along. And in the first century, because His people rejected their Messiah, God said, oh dear, that's frustrated my plans. What shall I do next? How about, let's call the Gentiles. That's not how God works. He knew before the foundation of the world that His people would reject His Son.

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    He decided before the foundation of the world the gospel would go out to the Gentiles. And He chose you and me before the foundation of the world. This is mind-blowing when you think about it. Now we can look at other occurrences of this word, foundation. You'll recognize these verses. in the chapter in which Jesus tells a lot of parables in Matthew 13.

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    I will open my mouth in parables. I will utter what has been hidden since the foundation of the world. What has been hidden since the foundation of the world. And what Jesus means by that, and Paul brings this out in Ephesians when he talks about the mystery of the gospel. that there are things that are hidden away in the Old Testament that are revealed in the New.

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    For instance, the call of the Gentiles. It's hidden away there in the Old Testament in the seed that God planted in the beginning. It shouldn't have been a surprise to those who were able to crack open that seed and look inside. Matthew 25, inherit the kingdom, prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

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    Prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Prepared already. In God's mind, as good as done. Or in Peter, he talks about Jesus foreknown before the foundation of the world. Everything that Jesus went through. We're going to talk about this later this week, how the crucifixion of our Lord was not a surprise to God.

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    We understand that, but when you think about it, brothers and sisters, it's not just that it was written about in the Old Testament or prophesied in the Old Testament that God designed it to happen from the foundation of the world. Everything God designed. And tomorrow, we're going to try to wrap our heads around this a little bit more and think, well, where does that leave things like free will?

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    if God designed everything in this seed. Now, here's a very interesting occurrence of that word. This is the same word katabole, the same word foundation, and here's a different kind of seed. Not a plant seed, now. Here is the seed of the woman. So, in Hebrews chapter 11, it says that, by faith, Sarah herself received power to conceive.

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    Of course, when you think of Sarah and the conception, she was conceding the seed of the woman and she had to have a seed planted in her womb. And it's the same concept. It's slightly different, of course. We're not planting a seed in the ground. We're planting a seed now in the womb of a woman.

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    But it's the same concept, isn't it? Even when she was past age. Now, look what it says at the end of verse 11 here. This is something brothers and sisters that I want us to focus on when we consider this eternal God that we're talking about this week. Sarah considered God faithful who had promised.

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    Now, yeah, we understand that God gives promises. We can trust in those promises. But let's really focus on the depth of that. And one of the reasons that God is faithful when He promises is because of this analogy of the seed. It's already there in the seed. We know that when we plant a rosebush seed, it will grow into a rosebush.

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    That's how we can look at the promises of God. They are absolutely 100% certain, guaranteed, as good as done, in God's mind, already done. Another analogy we could use, that in the beginning God weaved together a beautiful tapestry. And there it is, outlined, all of human history on this tapestry. But God could look at it in the beginning and stand back and look at His handiwork and say, there is my eternal purpose already done in His mind.

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    God who is outside time has already in His mind fulfilled His eternal purpose. So, Sarah understood this principle. She considered God faithful who had promised. And of course, out of that came the birth of the seed of the woman, the seed of promise. So, with that in mind, one last reference is in Romans chapter 9.

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    Romans chapter 9 is one of those chapters in the Bible which will be debated about until the Lord Jesus Christ returns. This is one of the questions that I'm going to have. like the Queen of Sheba came to test Solomon with hard questions. I'm going to ask about what really is the meaning behind Romans chapter 9.

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    And we debate it within Christodalphia. It's the chapter about God's purpose of election. Why does God choose certain people and not others? Is that even fair? And Paul in Romans 9 talks about the example of Esau and Jacob. And God chose Jacob and rejected Esau when they were in the mother's womb for crying out loud.

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    And how fair is that? Give Esau a chance. Come on. Poor Esau. He had no opportunity because God decided before they were born that Jacob should be the chosen one and Esau I have hated Esau God said. So Paul tries to get us to wrap our head around that. How is that even fair from our human point of view?

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    That doesn't make any sense, does it? So Paul analyzes this question in Romans chapter 9 and he gives an answer and every time I read Romans chapter 9 I hope the answer is going to pop out to me in a more mechanical way but it never does. Paul's answer his final answer really is you can't question God.

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    He's the potter, you're the clay. Who are you to question God? But anyway within this context since we're looking at Sarah here let's think about how the seed was planted that produced the promised seed Isaac and it's described here in Romans chapter 9 in a very interesting way. We'll just look at one verse here.

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    It says in verse 9 for this is what the promise said. About this time next year I will return and Sarah shall have a son. Now you notice there those words about this time next year I will return are a quotation from Genesis chapter 18 which is the chapter where the angels came to Sarah and to Abraham and said Sarah is going to be the mother of this promised seed Isaac.

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    And I believe that these words that were uttered by the angel on behalf of God here about this time next year I will return and Sarah shall have a son. I think those were spoken nine months before Isaac was born. This is the word of promise. This was God planting the seed in the womb of Sarah because of course this was a miracle.

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    Abraham was a hundred years old. Sarah was not only infertile, she had gone through menopause, her womb was dead. This required a miracle of God. So what produced that seed, what produced that child was the planting of the seed, the word of promise. About this time next year I will return and Sarah shall have a son.

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    So that's how, brothers and sisters, we can think about God's purpose. This is the analogy I want us to think about throughout this week. That in the beginning, God planted a seed. So Genesis chapter 1 verse 1, in the beginning there was God, described for us in scripture as a father. We read Proverbs chapter 8 that the Lord possessed me in the beginning of his work.

94. 41:00

    Wisdom personified as a mother. And then we have the planting of the seed. In the beginning, John says, was the word. And so in the beginning, God planted that seed. And in the design in that seed was you and me and all eternity. And that, brothers and sisters, is the incredible manifold wisdom of God.

95. 41:28

    Amen.